Karma Has No Cure
by Denwa
Summary: You think you are so great and you are so high and mighty but you are such an imposter. [Allen, Kanda.]


I just recently started reading the **D.Gray-man** manga and I'm more obsessed with it than I am obsessed with Naruto. Now that's saying something, ha-ha. I read 10 volumes in a day. **A day.** That's pretty sad, huh.

Written in the dreaded second-person. Oh, joy.

**KARMA HAS NO CURE.**  
THE LOVED BIRDS—  
(In the middle of a hot June morning and a war, Allen begins to feel jealousy as Kanda begins to feel regret.)

* * *

Kanda, you think grudgingly to yourself, is beautiful. Really. His long hair (that he claims to be washed with plain _soap_ but how the hell does he get it to be so soft?), tied into a high ponytail and his dark eyes and his aura—that mix between "I'll-just-go-ahead-and-tell-you-how-stupid-you-are" and "I'm-so-fucking-mysterious" and that tattoo above his (primarily nonexistent) heart—(you have once asked him what it was and he gave you the worst stare you have ever received in your life).

And he eats soba noodles like a foreigner (worse than Lavi and yourself and Komui—_"Eh?_ How do you _eat_ this?"—combined and that was saying something) but the thing was that he _wasn't_ a foreigner to Japan (he's _Japanese_ and he eats _Japanese food wrong_) and that made him stupid (the sixth of June was always Tell Kanda He's Stupid Day—it should be _national_ and _fabulous_ and you could say that _you_ were the genius behind this brilliant holiday but you don't and it's not).

You like his accent more than you liked your own British one—your accent is fussy and royal-sounding; the "t" in "water" was not pronounced like a "d" like an _American_—you sound like you're formal and of high breed when you spoke. Kanda, though, had his Japanese one—the "-tion" in a word like "friction" was always slurred over and ignored and his "v" still sounded like a "b" and that was why you spend so many moments here and there trying to put the pieces and fragments of his voice, listening to the older boy talk on missions and in the Black Order and sometimes when he sleep-talked when you slept near each other.

" 'Yuu,' " Lavi had once whispered into your ear at breakfast, "means 'superior' in Japanese." (He's going to be the Bookman one day and so you don't ask why he knows these things.) You look at his eyes and follow his trail and see that, with a wrenching in your heart, he is looking at Kanda and Kanda had looked so _bored_ because everyone was at least a table away from him (except you two) and still dressed in a traditional (he is so _traditional_) yukata and his head is resting on his head.

… Kanda is very _beautiful_ and he probably _knows_ it himself, too.

"Damn pompous bastard," you mutter under your breath and Lavi hears and Kanda hears and Lavi offers a crooked, lopsided grin and Kanda pretends to not hear and once again, that Japanese boy (who is _older_ than you by, what? Three years?) makes that tiny little breath catch in your throat and you want to cry because, well, what would Mana say? What would _you_ say? "Hey, Kanda, I know it's really weird and all but you, me, let's get it on"? _Talking_ about subtlety, because Kanda is the most subtle person you have ever known and he's really, _really__cold_—_damn_ cold—and Lavi had once said, "He's as cold as ice, that Yuu!" and you said, "He's _colder_ than ice!" and Lavi said, "What's colder than ice?" and you said, "I don't know—you're the Bookman, right?" and Lavi said, "Oh, yeah—_dry_ ice!" and you two laugh—yours is forced and shaky and… and…

That wrenching in your heart does not get any better when Lavi continues to look at Kanda and you stop eating your mountains and mountains of food. Nobody asks you "Hey, Allen! Why aren't you eating?" or "Hey, Allen! Your food is going to grow cold," only the din of the hungry Exorcists and Lavi staring at Kanda and your heart hurting and—you're Allen Walker, aren't you? The so-christened "Destroyer of Time," the boy with the parasitic anti-AKUMA weapon, the boy who is the friend of the future Bookman, the boy who turned his own father into an AKUMA. How depressing.

The boy who is possibly in love—_think_ of it, the very _idea_ of it! _Love!_—with one of his best friends?

Yes—that's _you_.

The guilt, the shame, the embarrassment, because life isn't flowers and rainbows and all.

You wonder what Kanda would say. You wonder what Lavi would say. You wonder what Komui would say. You wonder what General Cross would say.

You wonder what Lenalee would say.

* * *

You know that he has been avoiding you lately.

Or maybe that he always has avoided you and you were just too slow to notice. Or maybe, just maybe, that that tiny little heart that _wasn't_ covered in ice, he loved you all along. Or maybe you're just delusional and just want to be loved again. You miss that feeling, don't you? Loved by everyone. Loved by your (nonexistent) family, loved by your (nonexistent) father, loved by your (nonexistent) mother—loved by your (nonexistent) friend. Funny, isn't it? It's funny, because you tend to think of Kanda as your friend—one of your _best_ friend—and yet you don't know what he thinks (or maybe you do, you _stalker_) or what he likes.

And, well, you—everyone, really—knows that he likes his long, dark hair—hair that he puts so painstakingly up, making sure that it won't fall out or block his sense of sight. And he just might have twenty-twenty vision; he's just that beautiful and good and graceful and you feel a little bit of hate and a little bit of _love_ and he, being as unsociable as he is, probably thinks that black is the color of love and you start to run out of adjectives to describe him.

You really didn't think that it helped when he came back to the Black Order with his hair chopped off messily to shoulder-length. He glared at everyone who _dared_ spare him a glance and fingers Mugen like he's going to chop someone's head off regardless of they're an AKUMA or just plain human and you want to gap and say, "_Kanda?_"

Maybe it's an AKUMA in disguise.

Maybe he thought long hair wasn't in style anymore?

Or maybe he just cut it off because… because… someone _burnt_ it.

(What do you do with burning hair, anyways? You've never tried it.)

But you wonder why he didn't cut it all off; loose, stray strands of black bled onto his face and he whisks them away without a second thought like he didn't care at all (he really didn't but somewhere in your mischievous heart, your conscience says, _He looks _sexier_ this way_) and his wet boots slap the floor angrily and Lavi who is next to you has his mouth freely open and Kanda glares at him and gives him a look like "Say anything and die" and he closes his mouth.

Komui, who was walking down the corridor, spit his coffee out when he saw him.

By then, Kanda had enough of the stares and drew Mugen out and pointed it to the Supervisor's throat. "If you have something to say," he snapped nastily, "then say it to my face and I'll help you see God. Maybe _you'll see your sister_."

His blue coffee mug shatters and Komui is pale when Kanda hurls his sword into the ground and storms away (it cracks in a different spot this time).

Later, right after dinner (you and Lavi both notice that he wasn't there), you knock on his door. He opens it, hair still short (oh, so all of you _aren't_ hallucinating), angry, and bare-chested (you feel something in your heart).

"_What_ the _hell_ do you want?" he asks flatly in Japanese and you can feel your eyebrow rise (you know he _is_ saying "_What_ the _hell_ do you want?" because Lavi was once with you when he said it once and he translated). He must be a level beyond pissed off.

"Are…." You're not really sure on how to start your sentence. How can you piece it together without making him wanting to kill you? How can you make it a beautiful, poetic sentence without sounding like an English aristocrat? How can you _make him understand?_ You try, like this; "Are you… _okay?_"

You have just failed because Kanda's eyes now have a glint.

"With _what?_" he replies in English.

"With…" You play with your gloved fingers. "… your hair."

There is a potted plant very, very near him and he throws it, aiming at your head and he misses by a foot. Soil covers your face and you think of life as "Before Lenalee" and "After Lenalee." Not Kanda. Kanda is the boy (man?) who _had_ long hair before some mission took his hair away; Kanda is the boy (man.) who throws things when he is angry because Mugen is still lodged in a poor slate of… slate. Or marble? Why don't you notice these things?

"_Out_."

As you walk out of Kanda's room feeling slightly rejected and hurt, you wonder what Komui is feeling right now—remorse? Sorrow? Helplessness. He is sorry that he couldn't save Lenalee. He is angry that the Innocence chose his sister instead of him—why should _she_ be the one to die? He is furious that Kanda _dared_ mention her in these walls.

You wonder how Kanda can break your heart two times in just one fleeting moment.

* * *

Out of all the people in the world, you would've _never_ suspected that _Lavi_ would be the one to make Kanda cry like a little baby without his candy. You thought that it would be you (on a particularly _strange_ day). You thought that it would be Lenalee (he didn't shed a single tear at her… _her_… f—you can't even say it without a piece of you dying). You thought that it would be General Tiedoll (he's _weird_). Anybody _but_ Lavi—he's the boy (man?) who makes people laugh by telling them stories. Drawing on faces.

And Lavi yelled at him (your jealousy grows a little bigger—why can't _you_ yell at Kanda like that?) like he was yelling at anyone else and you watch (you were there) with almost a sick fascination when Kanda's lips moved to yell back. What if he catches you? What if Lavi catches you? What would you do, then? "I'm watching Kanda cry" wouldn't be an adequate answer, would it?

A dark glint catches your eye and you see that Lavi has thrown Kanda's Innocence unsheathed and Kanda catches it while one hand is covering his face and another hand gripping the blade. Blood runs down his (bare) arms and your eyes widen at the blood. There is a bright pink lotus in an hourglass on the corner of his desk and compared to his blood, it looks so pale like snow covering black pavement. You leave, because Kanda, you think, needs privacy like any other person (he's not _really_ a person—he's _cold_) and hope for the best.

The next morning, with the sun's shafts of rays shooting through the painted glass, you see that Kanda does not have his Innocence with him while eating (second that—he's not even eating). His eyes are dull and his hair was not tied up (it's too short, now) and he looks pale and clammy and just not Kanda-looking. He didn't change his yukata from yesterday, and everybody sees that there are stains of soil and ripped from the porcelain pot he had thrown at you.

Lavi, who is standing like a loyal dog besides you, looks away with glassy gray-green eyes and does not talk about China or America or Australia.

Komui enters for breakfast and Kanda stands up suddenly and the whole cafeteria is ghostly quiet. He takes steps like he would when he was normal—still Kanda and not _this_ Kanda, this _imposter_—and said, "Do you have any black paint?" No "Sorry for yesterday." No "Sorry for Lenalee." He just said "Do you have any black paint?" and you drop your fork. Lavi chokes on his milk. Jeryy stops cooking.

"… Excuse me?" says Komui, looking utterly confused. "Could you repeat that?"

"I _said_," says Kanda, his eyes still boring into his Supervisor's eyes, "Do you, by any chance, have any black paint?"

The Supervisor stops to stare at Kanda's face—not the same face nearly a year ago. He is older right now; he is (not) wiser right now; he is sadder right now. _Maybe he is feeling regret, you think, as I am feeling jealousy._ "I believe I do," says Komui chillingly. "Come with me."

"Kanda!" you shout on impulse but he cuts you off with a pleading look—you are confused. This is an imposter, you think. This _must_ be an imposter. But it's not. He's still the same—or, at least, he still _looks_ the same. Or maybe he's having a mental breakdown. Or maybe _you're_ the one with the mental breakdown. What do you do when your (best) friend (rival) who has been so cold to you before suddenly starts to die out? What if you said something wrong?

Lavi shakes his head at you with some of his old self still sown in somewhere and sips his soup half-heartedly, his barrage-of-color hair spilling into his eyes. He scowls. You scowl with him. By then, Kanda is already gone with Komui to get… black paint…, and you are left with an empty seat on your right. _Lenalee_, you pray; _are you okay? We miss you. Komui miss you. Kanda… has mental breakdowns—you are just that loved._

(_I wish you came back_.)

Would "I love you" be a lie?

* * *

You are, really, worried for Kanda's health and well-being. What if he goes insane? What if he _is_ already insane and you didn't see it until now? There are so many what-ifs that you are living in what-ifs and breathing in what-ifs and you think you're going crazy just like Kanda.

Maybe Kanda is upset about his hair.

Maybe Kanda is upset about Komui.

Maybe Kanda is upset about his Innocence and Lavi.

Maybe, just maybe, Kanda has been holding Lenalee in his (primarily nonexistent) heart until now. Maybe he just couldn't let go of her like everyone else could and everyone else hated themselves for it. Maybe he lost it because of her. Maybe she was haunting him and the memory of her just tore him apart. Maybe he's angry at Komui for not saving her. Maybe he's angry at himself for being there and not sacrificing himself.

Or—

You reach his door and with a hesitant knock, his instantly opens the door, looking the same as Kanda; composed and cool and level-headed and ambitious to some extent and apathetic as ever—the type of boy (man.) who leaves Finders behind because they need to finish their mission. The type of boy (_man_.) who can say "You're an idiot" without feeling. The type of boy (_man_. _You_ are the boy.) who can say "Tch" at a dying person.

"Hey, Kanda," you say quietly and he lets you in after looking at you for a moment that was a second too long. You see that his hair is even now—perfect, like him—and that bucket of paint is sitting in a corner of his room. You eye the paintbrush on his desk next to the lotus and hourglass. It's normal now. It's Kanda now, not some stranger you don't know.

He eyes you, still, with the same amount of levelness as before. You sit on his bed. He sits next to you (a foot away, but, still, isn't that the same?). You say, "What's up?" and he says, "Nothing" and you say, gingerly, "What happened with Komui and the paint?" and he says nothing but stands up (the mattress goes up from the lack of weight) and takes the paintbrush and the bucket of black paint and it's already open (and you still think Kanda is crazy. Or insane. They're adjectives. They're synonyms.) and with a steady hand, he dips the paintbrush (it's _wide_) into the bucket and draws on his walls. Splashes paint on his walls.

"Ka—!" you start to say but stop yourself. Is that the only thing you can say? "_Kanda?_" Why can't you say, _I want to help you_? _Let me help you. Stop being such an ass and let me help you.__You're not alone on this; it's not your burden to bear on your back._

"It's Yuu," he says emptily staring at the walls. "Call me Yuu."

_Don't cry_; you want to whisper this into his ear and pray that everything will be alright. You want to walk over to him (you do) and wrap your arms around him (you do) and rest your head on his shoulder (you do) and kiss him (you don't, because he is—why didn't you see this before?—in love with Lenalee and you are in love with him and maybe it's just better this way).

You don't kiss him because a part of your heart is broken by Lenalee and another part is broken by Lavi and another part is broken by Kanda (Yuu, because he's temporarily insane and needs to be sent to an asylum and a hair salon) and another is broken by Mana and another is broken by yourself.

You don't kiss him because he doesn't love you but you will always love him (now, looking back, you might have been a little _emotional_ and _sappy_ but that's okay, right?) and the sixth of June is Tell Kanda He's Stupid Day.

"Stupid," you murmur into his (left) ear. "You're really stupid, you know. A bean sprout."

You can feel his face turn into a smile—this really _is_ an imposter but you don't want this memory and moment to stop. You don't want to realize that he doesn't—he shouldn't, he wouldn't, he just _can't_—love you.

As life tends to move on.


End file.
